Building a Sales Focused Profit Center Capability in Outsourcing Centers

Dheeraj Prasad: Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening to all the viewers on the channel b2b sales podcast at Nytro.ai. We've been talking about outsourcing for a while now. And we have Derek Gallimore, who is the founder and CEO of Outsource Accelerator. And he is all about outsourcing. And he has had a phenomenal journey in terms of how he has created Outsource Accelerator as one of the leading market advisories in the outsourcing area. And I'd like to have Derek talk about himself a bit. So welcome to the show, Derek.

Derek Gallimore: Hi. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely. And which part of the world are you in right now, Derek?

Derek Gallimore: I'm in Dubai actually trying to get back into the Philippines, which is proving somewhat difficult because of the COVID travel restrictions. But yeah, it's all part of a big journey.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely. So do stay safe. And I'm sure you will find your way to Manila very soon. I was going through your overall journey as to how this actually took off. And you became so passionate about outsourcing to tell us as to what the Genesis was for you to take on to our sourcing in the way that you have so far.

Derek Gallimore: Sure, so I suppose if you go right back, I have always been quite globally-minded. I've lived in a sort of five or six countries worked across the world. One of my earlier businesses was based in London, but I effectively founded that from Sydney, and our primary workforce was in the Philippines. So from very early on, you know, it has a globalized workforce and globalized business has really only been possible for the last 10 to 15 years because of the technology enabling it. But you know, from those earlier days, I've been not by design, but just by, I suppose, lifestyle choice within that area. With my last business, I saw the incredible power of offshore staffing. Specifically, the Philippines, and in 2014, I moved to Philippines and the Philippines is somewhat of a Mecca, or Global Center for offshore staffing. And I found the industry so compelling. And it is, without doubt, the most powerful and transformative business tool for the businesses out there and not enough businesses know about it. So I set up Outsource Accelerator, which is really a marketplace representing outsourcing or offshore staffing or remote organizations. And it's really like a TripAdvisor for the industry. And we now have, you know, over a million visitors a year. We list over 1000 outsourcing suppliers on our website. We have about 15,000 pages of content. We also have our own podcasts, and we have the largest industry-facing newsletter. So we're really going after this industry and basically helping. What about globalized employment, offshore staffing and outsourcing.

Dheeraj Prasad: Phenomenal, this is great. And Derek, we've been used to the different stages through which they also think the industry has actually progressed and I've lived through some of this me, you know, with the y2k and the.com bust that happened in the early part of 2000 in some ways was known as the outsourcing one Dotto, you know, cost arbitrage was the primary driver for making that shift. And then, you know, we had a lot of things which was primarily related to a lot of distributed engineering work, which is now happening across most of the development centers. And, you know, there has been more confidence in getting some of the talents that are completely distributed as well, in many ways. I do also see that this is so very well aligned to the future of work. So how do you envision primarily the whole change that has now at the mindset level for global leaders to move from cost arbitrage to a value arbitrage where they see outsources as true partners of transformation?

Derek Gallimore: Yeah, sure. Good question. Look, cost and value are very different things and people can often confuse the two and think they're the same. Now one of the primary and will always be primary motivators for offshore staffing or outsourcing is the cost reduction. And look, there's just the sort of reality in the world that there are about 4 billion people on the planet that are earning about less than $100 a month, you know, and we, prior to technology, were stuck in our little localized silos, you know, New Yorkers could only employ New Yorkers, and that created a lot of price pressure. Australians could only employ Australians and so on. And now there is a globalized workforce, you know, New York had 8 million people. Yeah, you know, it's a big market, but the global workforce now is 8 billion people, you know, and that is sort of significantly bigger and introduces incredible network effects. Now, the primary motivation for this is cost-saving. Okay, you would not go offshore if there was not a cost-saving element. Because, you know, there are benefits to having people work shoulder to shoulder and beside you in your local market. However, cost-saving is not the only benefit. And now, over the last 25-30 years, the outsourcing industry has grown up to become incredibly specialized in the roles that they do. And they have developed incredible skills to not only provide, you know, sort of cheap, dumb staffing for want of a better word, but now they offer incredible executive talent, incredible process sophistication, you know, 30 years of executive experience in this industry. So now there's an incredible value-added within the industry that we haven't really seen before. And a good analogy Dheeraj is a little bit like Chinese manufacturing, you know, when it began 50 years ago, it was considered the Chinese were considered quite silly, and maybe they could, you know, manufacture a speed. But now, you know, fast forward 30-40-50 years, they are manufacturing the highest tech instruments, you know, they do all the iPhones, and in fact, their manufacturing capabilities far exceed that of the west now. So what you're seeing is a kind of flipping of skills and capabilities. And that is very much the same in the Philippines, where initially, it started with sort of fairly limited call center functions. But after 30 years, you know, people are incredibly intelligent, and they build things. And now the Philippines has grown into a mature industry, where they can add incredible value to businesses processes. And what you're seeing is that the sort of almost all Western businesses is now powered by a Philippine back end. And that is incredibly powerful for the Philippines. And not enough people are really sort of conscious and aware of this, just as it's almost assumed now that anything manufactured is manufactured in China, it's not yet realized that the fact is, you know, any of the major brands in the world are powered by a Philippine backend of Philippino professionals. And that's incredibly powerful.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely, I think this is a great example, Derek. And I'm sure there are some great practices that the Philippines as an outsourcing destination has worked on the talent side of the value. So what are some of the things which are currently happening to align the talent to the global needs of customers and brands, who are looking to outsource some of the just not the customer service and support but also, you know, related to some of the revenue-generating areas of opportunity for them as well?

Derek Gallimore: Yeah, so you know, initially 30 years ago, it was a very simplistic customer service function that was carried out by the Philippines. But now, of course, you know, the complexity is gone far beyond that. And also, instead of a call center or a place like the Philippines being a cost center, there is a sort of equal opportunity for these centers to be a profit center and a revenue-driving center, so they're not just seen as a negative cost. And that is really easy to do. You know, if you're talking from a customer service mindset, there is equal opportunity to turn a customer service event that is a cost center. That is just basically being reactive to a customer's needs, and flipping that around and being proactive. And, you know, it's not just satisfying a customer or almost satisfying your customer, but how can you go above and beyond and potentially even upsell a customer into new products and new services? And this is an exciting proposition for the industry and also clients, because, you know, why are there these sort of delineations and separations between customer service between sales between invoice disputes between a lot of other operational functions, you know, within a good organization, you should be understood across all of those departments, so that you get a better level of service for the client, a more sort of connected level of service for the client. And then also potentially, there is an opportunity for the client to upgrade to spend more, and that is kind of ultimately a proxy for a satisfaction level for the client, people only spend money with you if they're happy or satisfied or interested in the product. So, you know, it's a great proxy for customer satisfaction and serving the customer. Well.

Dheeraj Prasad: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, that's one of the things which is now happening, where customer success is the primary driver, so it's not really more of us, you know, kind of a siloed view of, hey, here is a customer support rep as against a sales rep. But if you're able to sort of blend the skill set in a single talent window, that could interface with a customer, solve their problems, understand where the needs are. And I think the whole aspect of, you know, the customer journey is not disconnected, like one single window for all customer interactions and experiences that could potentially be delivered.

Derek Gallimore: Absolutely, you know, and what is often overlooked is the customer is the most critical frontline of your business. And very often, you know, these businesses go, Ah, yeah, we'll get the customer service done overseas, and that'll show them you know, but the sort of the people that are connecting with your customers, arguably the most important people of your business, because that is where the rubber hits the road, that is where your brand has been represented. And if mistakes are made, then you're going to hear about it on social media. But also, if good things are done, you know, it can reflect so much better on the brand. Now, 25-30 years ago, if you ever mentioned outsourcing now, everyone goes on, oh my god, you know, I phoned my bank, and I get this person, I can't understand their accent, and they don't understand me, you know, and I think that's an unfortunate hangover from the earlier days of the call center industry. And that's 30 years ago. And you know, if you look at Chinese manufacturing, or the iPhone 10 or 20 years ago, it was pretty crappy 25-30 years on the customer service industry, and the contact center industry has really advanced in terms of its capabilities, and its sophistication, you know, now it's all omnichannel, it's chat, email voice, you know, multiple touchpoints. And we're also getting into this sort of holistic care of clients so that you don't have to be sort of pushed around 10 departments to get your needs met. So the industry has really, really advanced and, you know, like anything, it's a work in progress, but it's definitely light years beyond where it was when the industry started 25-30 years ago.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely. And I believe technology has also played its own key role in accelerating this whole change. And I was just reading about a very interesting app, which now also kind of makes accent more neutralized through AI. So you know, which is.

Derek Gallimore: Sanas

Dheeraj Prasad: Yeah, absolutely. That's the one that you refer to.

Derek Gallimore: Yeah, we work with them. Actually, they’re a Silicon Valley startup from Stanford and work with some of the best VCs in the valley. And, you know, they're potentially neutralizing accidents, which is sort of a pretty sci-fi crazy concept, but it'd be interesting to watch.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely and you know, we also are looking to bring in technologies like AI to help talent rescale itself as the whole industry is now becoming something which is more acceptable and as what we've talked about the fact that it does not matter if there is a customer-facing or customer support rep. As long as the person can reskill himself or herself to actually go ahead and do some upselling, you know, it's a great value add because it adds to the P&L for the contact center. But you know, we are looking at how AI-based practice could actually help train and reskill some of the talents in our source center. So I'd love to get some of your thoughts overall on how technology is looking at changing some of the underlying shifts in the whole focus on talent development. Given the fact that bots are now front-ending a lot of the volume, it's automating a lot of these responses, how the shift is happening to create more high value-added work for talent, specifically in some of these profit centers focus contact centers, Derek.

Derek Gallimore: For me, look, I'm confused. The jury is out in terms of the role that technology plays. I think technology will be awesome, you know, and with technology, I mean, sort of machine learning and AI and robotics and automation and chatbots, I think they will be a fantastic assistant or tool within the process. But I think it will be a long time before they become dominant or take over. You know, and by a long time, I mean, really a generation sort of 10 to 14 years, I still think it is such a long, long way away. But that's not to say that they can't be incredibly valuable tools within the process. You know, for example, I love my spell checker in Microsoft Word or you know, Grammarly. These are incredibly powerful tools that assist me in doing my work. But they're not sort of close yet to sort of writing the article for me, but incredibly powerful tools. And also, you know, an interesting thing in terms of call centers and processes on a scale. You know, there's this sort of famous process of McDonald's, where they asked you if you would like to supersize the meal, or would you like a drink with that? Now, these are fairly simplistic additions to a process. You know, the counters are already there, the people are already there doing the job. And it takes someone just to suggest to add that line, you know, do you want to supersize? Or do you want to drink with that, and that can generate millions or 10s of millions or billions of dollars to a process just by adding that. So it's these, it's having sort of conversion optimization and process optimization that can really move the needle, and they're very, potentially very simple to implement. And technology can really help with identifying those things, testing those things, and training people on those things and helping them to implement those things.

Dheeraj Prasad: Sure, absolutely. Derek has been fantastic. Getting some of your insights on the industry. And so, Derek, if there is one specific message that you would like to give to business leaders who are looking to outsource some of the key functions like sales to a destination like the Philippines, what would your advice be?

Derek Gallimore: Yeah, the first key piece of advice is just to start just to get started. No longer is employment confined to your local geography or environment. You know, there is now a global workforce out there of 8 billion people. And there is an incredible industry that is primed and dedicated to providing solutions for you and your business. It's an incredibly powerful proposition. And not only can you save about 70% on your staffing costs, you know, connect this industry that has 30 years of executive experience in refining and optimizing your business processes. Now outsourcing is a bit of a misnomer. It isn't necessarily outsourcing anymore. It's an umbrella term. And it's better to think of this more as staff augmentation or globalized employment. And it is a big, big world out there. And you can generally save about 50 to 70 to 80% on costs, plus you have access to all of this incredible executive experience that is working towards improving your business processes. So it's just such, you know, a blue ocean that is worth exploring for your business.

Dheeraj Prasad: Excellent. Thank you so much, Derek. It's been so wonderful talking to you. And I'm sure our viewers gonna love What also is accelerated is doing and if there is a way by which they wish to reach out to you, what's the best way to do so, Derek?

Derek Gallimore: Sure. Yeah, I mean the website, which is Outsource Accelerator.com.And of course, you can email me. My name is Derek, derek@outsourceaccelerator.com

Dheeraj Prasad: Excellent. Thank you so much. Lovely talking to you and hope to stay connected and talk to you soon.

Derek Gallimore: Great. Thanks, Dheeraj.

Dheeraj Prasad: Thank you.